Skip to main content

A Crucifixion

Fiction

“Aren’t you going to see the crucifixion?”  Tobit heard his neighbour, Jeremi, ask. 

A man called Jesus was going to be crucified along with two thieves.  Every crucifixion is an entertainment for these people who are burdened with the agony of existence.  Caesar and his men impose all sorts of taxes whenever they need money.  The priests in the temple keep giving rules just to make sure that no one ever rises above their control.  Taxes and rules.  What else was the lot of the common man?  The sweat of his brow.  That was God’s gift to them from the time He created Adam and Eve.  Taxes, rules and sweat.  A crucifixion was good entertainment whenever it came. 

But Tobit was not happy.  He knew Jesus.  He knew him from the time he was a tiny baby brought to the temple for the ritual dedication.  Simeon, the holy man, was present in the temple that day.  Tobit was there because he wished to seek the blessings of Simeon. 

Simeon took Jesus from Mary’s hands and said, “This child is going to mark the rise and the fall of many in Israel.”  He raised his eyes to the heavens and uttered a silent prayer.  Then, giving the child back to Mary, he said looking into her eyes sadly, “A sword will pierce your heart.”

Tobit’s heart trembled in his breast.  Evil forebodings rose in his heart churning his core.   He went out to vomit.

Tobit was just another ordinary carpenter.  A man who learnt the job from Joseph, Jesus’ father.  Otherwise he would have taken little interest in what Jesus said and did.  In whatever happened to him.  There was nothing new about people coming and proclaiming the end of the world.  His people, the Jews, were used to prophets of all sorts.  Those who warned them.  Those who cursed them.  Those who wept over them.  Some of them gave more commandments.  Not one prophet was ever happy with the world.  Not with the world of Yahweh’s chosen race, at any rate.  Tobit longed to see one smiling prophet.  A prophet who could teach the people to smile.  Who could tell them that life was not such a pain in the ass as made out to be by the prophets and other men of religion. 

Then came Jesus.  He smiled.  He tried to, at least.  Little children made him smile.  And he asked the people to be like the little children.  How absurd!  But no one can be a prophet, a man of God, without being absurd.  Tobit knew that though he was only a carpenter. 

Tobit also knew that Jesus was hurling himself headlong into a whirlpool of troubles.  Because Jesus was challenging the priests.  He challenged the law.  What is Judaism without its countless laws? 

“Man is not made for laws,” Jesus proclaimed rankling the blood in the veins of the priests.  “The one among you who has not broken any law so far, let him cast the first stone at her.”  Jesus said to the multitude that waited eagerly for their occasional entertainment of stoning a woman to death. 

He stole the law from the people.  He stole their entertainment.

He was thus a thief.  Law-thief.  Entertainment-thief. 

He promised them smiles.  But they wanted guffaws. 

The legislator washed his hands and said, “I want no share in the blood of this just person.”  He had better entertainments. 

“Crucify him!  Crucify him!” the multitude shouted eagerly.  Their hunger for entertainment had turned into impatience. 

“No, I don’t want to see it,” Tobit said to Jeremi.

A sword pierced Tobit’s heart.  A smile was dying on Golgotha.  Darkness was spreading across the sky. 

For copies click here
or here
More options soon

Comments

  1. I just read the blog on my smartphone. Then came a whatsapp message from the writer of this blog and was little embarrassed to know that some message from my side would put him in some sort of inconvenience of laughing out in a public place.
    I told him in my whatsapp message: ...thought you are at home because you posted a blog at 9.22 am'

    Now on a second thought, I felt I should have told him thus: Oh my god! Just at 9.22 am Jeremi killed you; and your people and I.....!
    Something like what Antony says to a throng of Romans when Caesar died!
    (In lighter vein...but the story is a parable for all ages.)
    I shut my mouth for appreciation :(
    I know I will always be speechless after reading your blogs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm getting used to the "infinite deaths" mentioned in my story 'Motion without Displacement" which also you liked. If my stories leave you speechless, I have reasons to feel fulfilled as a writer. A few minutes back I received another whatsapp message that my writing is at times too "mystical". I don't mean them to be. I wanted my writing to be always simple, easy for anyone to understand. But life teaches us such lessons that simplicity is stolen from our hearts. Perhaps my current habitat may turn out to be curative. It's a much 'simpler' place in comparison with Delhi.

      Delete
  2. At this time,in a very long time,I read something that could give thoughts a form,a real form.WOW.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts